Donkey Kong Land III GBC English Translation v1.2 by Blaziken257 I. Intro -------- Donkey Kong Land III was originally released in English for the Game Boy and the Super Game Boy in 1997. Later, in 2000, it was released for the Game Boy Color (titled Donkey Kong GB: Dinky Kong & Dixie Kong), but only in Japanese. This hack translates the Game Boy Color version from Japanese to English using the original English script. So, since 2012, you can finally enjoy Donkey Kong Land III in English -- in color! II. Version history ------------------- As of this writing, the most recent version of the Donkey Kong Land III English patch is version 1.2. It was released on November 17, 2014. Version 1.0 (Oct. 13, 2012) The initial release. Version 1.1 (Dec. 27, 2012) Various improvements have been added: - The world maps now have animation, which was originally in the Game Boy version but was removed in the Japanese GBC version. - The patch now shows your last time attempted in Time Attack mode, just as it did in the English GB version. - The Jetty Jitters demo, which was desynched in the Japanese version, was fixed so that the Kongs make it to the end of the level (like in the English GB version). - When playing the card matching game and winning it under a very fast time (30 seconds or better), Bear normally congratulates you. In version 1.0 of the patch, when Bear tells you the cheat code on the title screen, UUDLR is used to represent Up, Up, Down, Left, Right (like in the GB version). In version 1.1 of the patch, arrows are used instead, which look neater than abbreviated letters. - When Bear, Wrinkly, and K. Rool speak, a bug, which originated in the Japanese version, occurred where a glitchy tile would appear for a very brief moment. This has been fixed in version 1.1 of the patch. - In the DMG (monochrome Game Boy) screen, the prerendered text has been formatted a bit differently; namely, the spaces are smaller. - The level Karbine Kaos is now in lowercase to differentiate itself from the boss, KAOS. - Bonus stage descriptions are now in lowercase. - Credits are updated to include myself. The typo in "THE END ?" (from the GB version) was also fixed. Version 1.2 (Nov. 17, 2014) Further improvements have been made: - The bug that prevents backup files from being read (which originated in Donkey Kong Land 2) has been fixed, allowing backup files to be used when a corrupt file is present. More information can be found in Section VI: Bug fixes. - The bonus counter bug, which causes the counter to continue decreasing to zero after losing to a bonus stage (which also originated in Donkey Kong Land 2) has been fixed. More information can be found in Section VI: Bug fixes. - On the world map screen, the level and world names on the bottom of the screen print slightly more quickly when traversing through the map. - Bear's "Sorry chimps, your credit won't stretch that far" dialogue has been restored, and it appears randomly (50% of the time) when you attempt to buy something that you cannot afford, just as it does in the Game Boy version. - In Cape Codswallop's Sheepy Shop, when you have less than 8 Bonus Coins, Bear's dialogue includes a leading zero in the numeral 08 (i.e. "I need to see 08 of those Bonus Coins!"), just as it does in the Game Boy version. (In the Japanese version, there was a space instead of a leading zero, which carried over to English patches v1.0 and v1.1.) - Bear's animation is restored. Bear was originally animated in the Game Boy version, but his animation was removed for no apparent reason in the Game Boy Color version. III. How to play ---------------- In order to play this English translation, you will need: - A ROM of the Japanese version. - For legal reasons, the ROM does not come with the ZIP file. You will need to find it yourself -- do not ask where to get it. Alternately, you can get the cartridge and find a way to dump the ROM yourself. - The ROM should be titled "Donkey Kong GB: Dinky Kong & Dixie Kong". If it is titled "Donkey Kong Land III", you have the wrong game -- you want the Japanese game for the GBC. - The ROM should be a good dump and unhacked. Do not use an older English patch, the Spanish patch, or any other patches! - A patch file. Multiple files come with this ZIP file, ending in extensions .bps and .ips. Two are included here for convenience, but you only need to use one. - An emulator. There are numerous emulators that you can use, but some recommended ones are: BGB, VisualBoyAdvance-M, Gambatte, etc. These are easy to find with a search engine. A. Patching ----------- This ZIP file comes with two patching files: a .bps file and an .ips file. You can choose between either of them! You don't need to use both. 1. IPS ------ IPS is one of the most used patching formats (despite some disadvantages, such as lack of checksum information) and is thus included here. There are two ways you can use apply this IPS patch: Soft patching and hard patching. a. Soft patching ---------------- This method is used to apply the patch without changing the original file. To do this, you will need an emulator that allows this functionality, such as VisualBoyAdvance. If you are using VBA, follow these steps: 1. Make sure the IPS file is placed in the same directory as the ZIP or GBC ROM. Make sure the filename is the same, except with the .ips extension instead of the .gbc or .zip extension. For example, if your ROM has the filename Donkey Kong GB - Dinky Kong & Dixie Kong (J) [C][!].gbc, then your IPS file should have the filename Donkey Kong GB - Dinky Kong & Dixie Kong (J) [C][!].ips. 2. In VBA, go to Options->Emulator->Automatic IPS patching, and make sure it is checked. (Note: Depending on the version of your emulator, this text may be different; for example, in VBA-M, it's Options->Emulator->Auto-apply IPS/UPS/PPF. It shouldn't be that complicated to figure out.) 3. Start the ROM, and it will be patched! b. Hard patching ---------------- There are various utilities for hard IPS patching. One such utility is Lunar IPS. Find it here: http://www.romhacking.net/utilities/240/ If you use Lunar IPS, follow these steps: 1. Take the original, UNCOMPRESSED GBC ROM (not ZIP or 7Z!) and make a copy of it; this allows you to backup your original copy. 2. Open Lunar IPS. 3. Click "Apply IPS Patch". 4. Find the IPS file and select it. 5. Find the unmodified source ROM and select it. 6. If done right, your ROM will be patched. WARNING: Since the IPS format does not have checksum information, there is no warning if you patched the wrong ROM. Be careful!! Alternately, you can use the BPS file (see below). 7. Enjoy the English hack! Note that you can use other IPS programs too! 2. BPS ------ The BPS format is not as well known, but it has certain advantages, such as checksum information, a smaller filesize, and XML metadata. Having checksum information is particularly useful because you will know for sure whether you patched the correct ROM. If you wish to use the BPS file, you will need to use byuu's beat program, found here (to make this clear, I take no credit for this software): http://www.romhacking.net/utilities/893/ Follow these steps to use it: 1. Open beat. 2. Click "Apply Patch". 3. Find the BPS file and select it. 4. Find the unmodified, UNCOMPRESSED source ROM and select it. (It must have the .gbc extension, not .7z or .zip!!) 5. Choose a file name for the patched ROM. 6. The program will create the patched ROM. If successful, you will see the message "Patch application was successful!" * If you picked the wrong source ROM, you will receive an error message. The program will know this due to checksum information. This is one advantage that BPS has over IPS. 7. Enjoy the English hack! IV. Translation information --------------------------- The text in this hack is based on the original English script; however, the font is based on the original DKC font, as opposed to the DKL2 and DKL3 font, resulting in a cleaner look and having lowercase in addition to uppercase. Other things worth noting: - Re-Koil, Minkey, Knik-Knak, and Knocka are known as Rekoil, Minky, Niknak, and Krusha in this patch, just as they were known in the original English DKL3. This is different from their DKC3 names. Part of the reasoning behind this decision is because certain level names and dialogue use the DKL3 enemy names, ruling out the possibility of typos. In addition, Knocka is known as Krusha even in the Japanese version of DKL3. - KAOS is spelled in ALL CAPS, like in the SNES version of DKC3, but unlike the GBA version. However, the level Karbine Kaos is in lowercase, because this is not meant to reference the boss. - Some punctuation was fixed, most notably in K. Rool's Last Stand. - In Wrinkly's dialogue, Kremlings is now spelled correctly. - The file select screen text was changed slightly. Namely, any instance of the word "game" was changed to "file", since this sounds more accurate. Thanks to Gaz for suggesting this. A. Title screen --------------- The title screen was edited; it is a combination of the English and Japanese title screens. The Donkey Kong GB: Dinky Kong & Dixie Kong logo was replaced with the Donkey Kong Land III logo from the retail English v1.1 ROM. Version 1.1 was chosen over 1.0 simply due to preference: my English cartridge has this title screen; thus, I am completely used to it. Everything else, including the Kongs' color palettes, and the Press Start text, was unchanged from the Japanese version (again, due to a personal preference). B. Bonus screens ---------------- The text here was translated, like everything else, but for the "Find the Token!" and "Bash the Baddies!" screens, the color palette for the text was changed as well. Except for the "Collect the Stars!" screen, the text was in pink, which became more noticeable with the thicker font and the dark outline. Not only did this make the text look ugly (and inconsistent), but the pink text is likely the result of an oversight. The text defaults to palette 0 in all three screens; on two of these screens, this is pink, because it is the color of Dixie's clothing. The solution to fixing this was to rearrange the color palettes so that white/gray would be palette 0 (which matches the "Collect the Stars!" screen), and reassign the palettes for each tile in the image above accordingly. It's certain that most people prefer the white text over the pink text. C. Rareware logo screen ----------------------- Similar to the title screen, this screen is a mixture of the original Japanese and English screens. While the screen is mostly taken from the Japanese version, the "Donkey Kong GB: Dinky Kong & Dixiey [sic] Kong" text was changed to "Donkey Kong Land III". D. DMG (Game Boy) screen ------------------------ The screen that appears when attempting to play this on a Game Boy was also translated to English. The game title uses the font from DKC2 for the SNES, reduced to 4 colors. The main message uses a custom font with prerendered text, made entirely from scratch. This design is subject to change if it receives negative feedback. V. Restored features -------------------- When Donkey Kong Land III was converted to the Game Boy Color, certain features were inexplicably removed (likely due to time constraints), but were restored in this patch. - Most notably, the world maps and Bear lost their animations. The English hack, from version 1.1 onwards, restores the animated world maps. Bear's animation has also been restored, starting with version 1.2. - In the Time Attack screen, your most recent time is no longer shown in the Japanese version. The English hack, starting from version 1.1, restores this feature, so that your most recent time is once again displayed on the bottom of the screen. - When talking to Wrinkly, he has two different dialogues when he greets you in the Game Boy version (which is random every time), but only one in the Game Boy Color version. All English patches (from v1.0 onward) use the same two dialogues that were in the Game Boy version. - Similarly, when talking to Bear and attempting to buy something that you cannot afford, he has two different dialogues for this situation in the Game Boy version; one of these appears at random each time. In the Japanese version, he only has one dialogue for this. Due to this, English patches v1.0 and v1.1 originally had only one dialogue for Bear as well, but starting with v1.2, both of the original dialogues have been present. VI. Bug fixes ------------- Besides translating the game and restoring features that were removed in the Japanese version, some bugs that were originally present in retail copies of Donkey Kong Land III (and in some cases, Donkey Kong Land 2) were fixed. Here is a list of bug fixes: - When on the title screen, and waiting for the music to end without pressing any buttons, a demo of Jetty Jitters is played. This demo was designed for the original English version for the Game Boy; the Game Boy is slower than the Game Boy Color. The Japanese version for the Game Boy Color is heavily reliant on the Game Boy Color's faster CPU, which is about twice as fast as the original Game Boy. This extra speed causes timing issues, and causes the demo to desync, preventing the Kongs from making it to the end. The version 1.1 English patch, and all subsequent patches, tweak this demo slightly so that the Kongs are able to make it to the end of the level. - When losing to a bonus stage, the counter that is used for enemies or stars does not reset to zero. Due to this, when defeating an enemy in the main level (i.e. outside a bonus stage), the counter can continue to decrease. Once this counter reaches zero, the sound effect that is used when the Bonus Coin appears can be heard. This bug originated in the English version of Donkey Kong Land 2; in that game, collecting bananas also affected the counter. The English version 1.2 patch fixes this bug, so that the counter no longer decreases outside a bonus stage. - In both Donkey Kong Land 2 and III, for each save file, there are also two additional backup copies of them. The intention of the developers was that if any of the main save files were corrupt by any means (such as dust residing in the cartridge), but any of the backup copies were still working properly, these would be used instead. However, both of these games have a bug that prevents the backup copies from being used at all, and due to this, it is possible to see a corrupt save file when playing the game. The English version 1.2 patch fixes this bug so that backup copies are used when needed, which makes it highly unlikely that you will ever see a corrupted save file. Note that if the main and backup copies are all corrupted, the data is impossible to recover, and your save file will be erased in this situation. - In the Japanese version of the game, whenever there was scrolling text (from Wrinkly or Bear), a buggy tile would appear at the beginning of the text for one frame before the text would start to print. This was fixed in the English patch from version 1.1 onwards. VII. Known issues ----------------- This hack was thoroughly tested in BGB and Lameboy, so in theory there shouldn't be any added bugs. Nevertheless, there are certain issues here. Some bugs that are present in the original Japanese game (and in some cases the original English game, and even DKL2) were not fixed. The main exceptions are anything listed in section VI: Bug fixes, such as the aforementioned color problem in the bonus screens, the bonus counter bug, the backup save file bug, and the issue with the Jetty Jitters demo. The rest are unlikely to be fixed since most of them are minor. VIII. Distribution ------------------ You are free to distribute this patch and use it, as long as you do the following: - Don't take credit for this patch; I put a lot of hard work into it! - Don't remove the README file. - Only distribute it in patch form; do not distribute the pre-patched ROM. This could expose you to copyright issues if you do. IX. Credits ----------- Thanks to: - Nintendo for creating Donkey Kong. - Rare for creating the Donkey Kong Country and Land series. - BGB for having such a useful debugger and disassembler. - Gaz (from DKC Atlas) for suggesting that I use "file" instead of "game" on the file select screen. - Blaziken257 (myself) for the hacking. - Last but not least, yourself for reading this and playing the translation. IX. Contact ----------- I, Blaziken257, can primarily be found at: - DKC Atlas: http://dkc-atlas.com/forum/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=91 - The Cutting Room Floor: http://tcrf.net/User:Blaziken257 I am often busy, so if you send me something, please wait at least a week for a reply.